Although there is a growing body of knowledge and documentation of the female experience of pregnancy and developmental tasks of the expectant mother, there has been little systematic inquiry and documentation of the parallel male experience. Changing societal beliefs about sex roles and parenting responsibilities have prompted greater attention to the male who has previously been largely excluded form the reproductive and childrearing process. Nurses are the primary providers of childbirth and parent education programs. They are involved in many aspects of reproductive health care in a variety of settings and with all members of the expanding family. As such, they are engaged in the socialization of parents on a large scale basis and have significant opportunity to attend to the caring needs of the expanding family. In order to assess male progress toward paternal role acquisition, including deviations from the norm, and to attend to the caring needs of expectant and new fathers, nurses must have a better understanding of these experiences. The purpose of this study is to understand and describe the male experience of expectant and new fatherhood and the caring needs of men over the perinatal period. In the short term this information will guide nursing assessment and in the long term serve as a basis for the development of nursing interventions to support and promote paternal behavior. Understanding and describing the human experience of expectant and new fatherhood will be accomplished through the use of a phenomenologic field research design. Specifically, grounded theory methodology will be utilized to collect data from expectant and new fathers in their natural environments with data being analyzed through the technique of constant comparative analysis. The goal of this study is to generate a substantive theory which describes the phenomena of expectant and new fatherhood. The sample will consist of up to 125 expectant and new fathers aged 18 to 45 who are expecting the birth of a first child, living with their mate, and speak and understand English. Twenty to 25 fathers will comprise the core of the sample and will be interviewed six times over the course of expectant and new fatherhood. Additional informants will comprise a cross-sectional group for validation purposes.